Key Passages Talk: No Occupation: Derrida on Palestine

Taking its point of departure from a thread of references to Palestine in Derrida’s writings, from Glas to his last texts, this lecture seeks to demonstrate that these key passages can be a resource for us as we navigate our way through the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It traces Derrida’s complicated relation to his own Jewishness and argues that it is this complexity that enables him to guide us through the thicket of the recent war in Gaza and its ongoing consequences. Audience Q&A and a reception will follow.

Eduardo Cadava is Philip Mayhew Professor of English at Princeton University. He is the author of Words of Light: Theses on the Photography of History, Emerson and the Climates of History, Paper Graveyards, and, with Sara Nadal-Melsió, Politically Red. He has co-edited Who Comes After the Subject?, Cities Without Citizens, and The Itinerant Languages of Photography. He has also translated with Liana Theodoratou Nadar’s memoirs, Quand j’étais photographe, which appeared under the title When I Was a Photographer.

Cosponsored by the IHC’s Key Passages series

Image: Fazal Sheikh, Remains of the demolished home of ʽAwad Abu Ḥbak, in the vicinity of the village of Bīr Haddāj, 31°1′11″N / 34°43′50″E, 2011 (detail), from Desert Bloom (2015). Courtesy of the artist.